CFP: Gothic Manchester Festival Conference 2019

‘Gothic Times’

26 October 2019

In the opening decades of the twenty-first century, with Trump in the White House and Brexit on the horizon, Angela Carter’s famous assertion of 1974 that ‘we live in Gothic times’ has never been more apt. But from the eighteenth century onwards, the Gothic mode has routinely placed the present moment under scrutiny, exploring the terrors of the age whilst calling into question the comforting fantasies upon which the established order rests. In this, the Gothic text might be seen to offer a culturally and politically engaged exploration of the historic period in which each text was produced, interrogating the contemporary present even as it calls into question standard historical narratives about the past.

This year’s Gothic Manchester Festival Symposium picks up on these concerns, inviting twenty-minute papers on the theme of ‘Gothic Times’ that are accessible to a non-specialist audience. These may focus on any aspect of Gothic culture – literature, film, television, music, graphic novels, games, Goth subcultures, etc. Topics may include, but are certainly not limited to:

The Gothic and History / Gothic Histories

The Gothic as social and political critique

Gothic narratives in (and out of) time

Gothic temporalities – time in the Gothic text

Gothic of the present moment: Trump and Brexit

Projecting the Future – Gothic/SF fusions

Abstracts of 150 words are to be sent to the conference organiser Dr Linnie Blake by July 30th 2019.